Why Medieval IRON Never Rusted While Yours Dies in 2 Years

Comments · 2.2K

• ME

  @MedievalWisdom · 2 weeks ago · pinned

  This one isn&apos;t the buildable guide — it&apos;s iron. If you want the how (quantities, modern materials, safety, code), that&apos;s here → <a href="https://medieval-wisdom.com/?utm_source=youtube&amp;utm_medium=pin&amp;utm_campaign=iron">https://medieval-wisdom.com/?utm_source=youtube&amp;utm_medium=pin&amp;utm_campaign=iron</a><br>Still: which of these would you actually try?

• MU

  @multilis2 · 11 months ago

  Selective bias, we only look at the medieval iron that didn&apos;t rust away because the stuff that rusted away is gone.

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• MI

  @mickeyfilmer5551 · 11 months ago (edited)

  I am the proud owner of a cleaver and a slaughtermans knife that belonged to my Great Great Grandfather, they were handed down to me by my grandfather who was born on Feb 2nd 1900, they are blacksmith made and have zero rust, and extremely sharp edge, and I still use the knife today for cutting meat. I&apos;m in my late sixties, so I&apos;m guessing that these are from the late 1700&apos;s to early 1800&apos;s oh and &nbsp;I am British as were my maternal grandfathers (actually Welsh)

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• VE

  @Veklim · 11 months ago

  I&apos;m astounded how a video with so many accurate facts in it can still misrepresent the situation so utterly. Truly a masterful exercise in gaslighting propoganda. If you were to try and use medieval iron in modern construction your buildings would collapse, if you used it for modern tooling the tools would shatter, chip or erode. Modern metallurgy has fine tuned material properties for specific tasks, the removal of impurities has increased reliability and safety, and the use of oils and daily maintenance is STILL occurring despite your claims. The medieval iron we see today is simply that which has survived, the VAST majority of iron from that period has already rusted away to nothing and we CANNOT accurately or reasonably assess the general state of iron from that period simply from the few remaining pieces which have, for one reason or another, survived the test of time.

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• TH

  @Thomas63r2 · 11 months ago

  By all accounts, I have collected a fair number of tools over the last 60 years. &nbsp;The only tools I have with appreciable rust are tools that I have found in the field, lost by who knows who. &nbsp;When I started as a mechanics helper it was my job to gather up all the tools needed for a job, and then clean them and reorganize the tool cabinets at the end of the day. &nbsp;Without much thought I noticed that wiping the tools down with slightly greasy or oily rags was preferable to using clean fresh rags which might allow a little rust to form. &nbsp;Since then I&apos;ve always kept some slightly used rags for wiping my tools down at the end of the day.

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• ZS

  @ZsoltSzabó-c2s · 11 months ago

  Engineer here. This whole documentary is misleading, suggesting that we somehow lost some hidden ancient knowledge.<br>First of all, industry didn&apos;t eliminate phosphorus from iron due to productivity causes. No, we have literally thousands of different type of steel and iron defined for thousands of different type of usage. For example you don&apos;t want stainless steel gears in your car, because it can&apos;t be surface hardened so it will be jammed before your car&apos;s first oil change. Also it&apos;s not necessary since it&apos;s marinated in oil so it won&apos;t rust.<br>A different case is for example cutlery. You don&apos;t need them to be hard because a stainless steel one is also perfectly hard enough to cut your steak or stab it with your fork, but it&apos;s important to have a smooth surface without any spot of rust fur health and comfort. This is why they are alloyed with Chromium and Nickel.<br>Another different case is construction beams. You want them to be tough, so you don&apos;t need them to be hardened (the more hardened the steel is the more brittle is too), but also you can&apos;t allow a spot of rust on it if you encase it in cement, since rusting has a side effect of volume increase. Also stainless steel is too mild and too expensive for this purpose, so this is where you need to define if it is used in an area where moisture can touch it or not (for examle, not encased in concrete and concrete is not underwater like in a dam or something). If there&apos;s a risk of rusting you use anti rust paint.<br>So no man, it&apos;s not that medieval people understood metallurgy more than us, they simply used everything that they had, and the better quality ones survived.

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• MR

  @MrZnarffy · 11 months ago

  You can do this with modern &quot;mild steel&quot; too, you don&apos;t need either sulfur or slag. You need it to form the black oxide layer instead of rust, by taking care of it every day, oiling it, etc. over time it will form a thick stable oxide layer.

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• WO

  @Wolf_K · 11 months ago

  If you want to prevent red rust (highly destructive) on high carbon steels then clean them of all oils and fingerprints and dunk them in a tub of Ferric Chloride for a number of seconds until they turn dark grey to black (this magnetite layer is protective). Rinse in water and bi-carb soda to neutralize. Rinse in fresh water and dry thoroughly.<br><br>Watch the years pass by with no rust whatsoever. In actual use some of the black oxide will wear off but that will only be on the areas touching other things, but you can replace it by touch ups with Ferric Chloride as necessary.<br><br>I live by the sea and high carbon tools/knives rust here very quickly unless I treat them. Once treated I get zero rust…even years later I can’t find any on my treated tools.<br><br>Ferric Chloride is what’s used to bring out the patterns in pattern welded steels (falsely known as Damascus steel) and is also an enchant for printed circuit boards so keep it away from copper or you’ll have no copper. 😂

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• VA

  @vargr · 11 months ago

  I grew up in Norway, we made blades for knives, plane blades, chisel, ax heads, out of bog iron, and we did it in the 60-70s.

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• DG

  @dginia · 11 months ago

  Thank you for helping remember my Grandpa Johnson. Orphaned at age 6, he was shuffeld among the several of his sibling’s families, eventually going to the Swedish Orphanage in southwest Iowa. He always said that he went to the School of Hard Knox. He was trained as a blacksmith in the early 20th century. Apprenticed to three different blacksmiths, he complained to me that when it came to demonstrating an important process they would turn their backs to him! His comment was, “I showed them. I went to the library and read about metals and learned why those colors were important.” For a time he was the blacksmith on a railroad bridge crew. If they needed a tool, he made it for them. He knew why a hammer needed to be hexagonal, for instance, to be a safe hammer.

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• ME

  @melodyscott1290 · 11 months ago

  I am a history buff and have a great appreciation for old skills, however, there are some things i can appreciate in a modern manufacturing process. I hate that &nbsp;fast fashion deteriorates so quickly but i am so glad my ax doesnt cost a months wages. I can still teach my children to take care of our tools but i dont mind spending another 30$ to replace what was wore out in my tool shed.

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• GE

  @genxjaws1191 · 11 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_fXDPyu9KM&amp;t=66">1:06</a> and resonates with anyone over 50 years old

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